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Supporters of education should be seeing Red right now.

We need to be Red-hot angry over the decision by Ducey’s Supreme Court, backed by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, to take the Invest in Education initiative off the ballot.

We need to be more #RedforEd than ever.

We need to rid Arizona of Red/Republican politicians who vote in lockstep with their rich backers, ignoring the needs of our children. Throw The Sons Of Bitches Out! To paraphrase a slogan Republicans loved in the 60s: “Arizona: Love its children or Leave office.” Don’t let the Capitol door hit your asses on the way out.

If we can’t campaign for Invest in Ed, then we campaign hard for candidates who promote a progressive education agenda: David Garcia for Governor, Kathy Hoffman for Superintendent of Public Instruction and all the other state and local Democrats who are facing uphill electoral battles. It doesn’t matter if they were your first choice in the primary. They’re your first choice now. The future of Arizona education — hell, the future of Arizona — is hanging in the balance.

Don’t get sad. Get mad! And do something about it.

EJ Montini wrote a column in the AZ Republic saying basically, Nah, Arizona won’t vote the sons of bitches out. In November, we’ll do what we always do, put government back in the hands of Republicans who screwed us over. I ask myself, is Montini a cynic or a realist? These days, it can feel like they’re the same thing. But they’re not. Cynicism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we fall prey to it, cynicism turns into reality.

Remember, in the midst of the tragedy which is the Trump presidency, some strange and wonderful things have been happening around the country.

Democrats have been beating Republicans in races they wouldn’t have won two years ago. When Democrats haven’t won, they’ve come close enough to make Republicans nervous.

Democratic upstarts are exciting the electorate, flying in the face of common wisdom and the polls and winning primaries over their well established, well funded Democratic opponents.

Take a look at Oklahoma. It’s close to a clone of Arizona when it comes to underfunding education. In March the legislature raised teacher salaries by passing its first tax hike in 30 years by the needed three-fourths majority with Yes votes from Republicans a well as Democrats. Of the 19 Republicans who voted No, only 4 made it to the ballot for the November general election.

And let’s not forget our own #RedforEd movement which brought Doug “One percent for teachers” Ducey to his knees, forcing him to add another nine percent to his budget proposal for teacher raises.

If we sigh and say, “It doesn’t matter what we do, it won’t make a difference,” we’ll be right. Nothing will be different. But this year, maybe, to paraphrase an Obama slogan from his first presidential campaign, We are the change Arizona has been waiting for.

We’ll never know until we try.

This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2018.

8 replies on “Don’t Get Sad. Get Mad!”

  1. If you took the time to open your mind and really look around you would see that employment is growing Federal and State tax revenues are increasing and retirement savings is growing. Stop being such a negative Nellie.

    I thought the Judge that overturned the initiative had used good judgement in rendering his decision. It was a lot like saying we want to increase corporate taxes and it won’t hurt the consumer. We all know who pays the bulk of all taxes. Those that can least afford to.

    To say the future hangs in the balance is another chicken little attempt to scare the voters into action. Regardless of right or wrong.

  2. I absolutely support the #RedforEd movement. However, wasn’t the problem that the backers made math errors and therefore the proposition was worded incorrectly? If so that’s not the Court’s fault. Knowing it would be challenged, it was incumbent upon the Dems to get it right and apparently they screwed up.

  3. I hope this means we will see you and others at 4 today out in front of the statehouse on Congress, and then at 7 a.m. on Tuesday in front of a school (not sure about that second one) wearing red and dusting off those Red for Ed signs! The striking teachers in the rest of the country need our support as much as our teachers do. Yesterday I was hearing from a lawyer how hard it is to write a waterproof proposition or initiative and how very intense the pressure is from the Koch funded side on every word, every comma. And then, when the Supreme Court is stacked with Koch buddies like Clint Bolick, the VP for litigation for the Goldwater Institute, the justices will follow that Arizona theme song….”What would Charles Koch do?” For more on just who this “Justice” is, readers can check out https://ballotpedia.org/Clint_Bolick. He comes up in 2019….surely our memories will be long enough to boot him out.

  4. The Koch Brothers will not live forever; thank God. And a generation of kids are growing up now who understand intuitively that something is terribly wrong about the inequalities that are increasingly obvious to everyone else. The pendulum is beginning to swing in the other direction and I believe that positive change for human decency will come sooner than later. How many generations of Americans will forever kneel at the feet of the elites and do their bidding? The education issue is just one of so many that focuses our angry attention to all the disparities that exist. The Duceys and Kochs days are numbered. We, the American people, have the opportunity in two months to greatly increase the chances wi shall happen sooner than later.

  6. Tony V. You write “We all know who pays the bulk of all taxes. Those that can least afford to.” Maybe most folks know, but I don’t know who WHO is in this case. Please enlighten me. My belief at this time is that it is the upper middle and upper class that pay the bulk of the taxes. I assume that most individuals from the upper middle and upper classes are able to pay taxes. I’m from the middle class and I have no problem paying taxes. Again, who is the WHO?

  7. what is to be done? lenin’s answer was fight back. if the communist reference scares you good we need to scare these people. courts ok we can refuse to sit on jurys or automatically find people innocent. this will scare the corporatists. their are many other things like this that can be done.

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